The line represents the idea of expansiveness. It heads in a straight line, forever. It inspires us to keep moving; to progress, advance, and evolve.

The circle represents the notion of limitation. It always ends up coming back on itself. It reminds us of the importance of limits.

The spiral can be seen as a combination of the line and the circle. It brings together the ideas of expansiveness and limitation. The path of the spiral evolves, but does so by revisiting familiar territory. As we work our way around the spiral we end up back where we began, but we return changed. Things are the same, yet different. It has been said that ‘all progress is a returning home.’ The spiral shows us how we can both progress into the new whilst returning to the old.

2. Life / Death

Within every living thing there is a tug of war, consisting of the the
pull towards life, and the pull towards death. The life urge is
conservative, the death urge expansive.

Life is defined by the process of limitation; a thing is only a thing
because of all the things it is not; from a sea of infinite possibility
certain characteristics are chosen, at the expense of others. Infinity
is bounded.

Death is the return to infinity; the unbinding of what has been bound.
If life is synonymous with 'limited', then death is synonymous with
'unlimited.'

As humans we have an urge towards expansiveness - the need to constantly
explore new territory - that must be balanced by the imposition of
limits. A lack of boundaries allows us to adventure to far flung places,
full of mystery and novelty - but whenever we travel to extremes we
also dance with death.

3. Process

The Line, the Circle and the Spiral talk to us about process, development, evolution; about getting from one place to another, or one state to another; and about journeys, and the different kinds of journeys we can make. A journey is often preceded by a mission, or a story; and the stories that we tell ourselves can determine the paths that we then choose to walk down, along with the subsequent twists and turns that we make on our journey. Our stories are our guides, leading us towards certain things and away from others. “We see what our ideas allow us to see.”

4. Personal growth

“Going round in circles” is used to convey the idea of moving without progress. If we go round in circles too much then we may become stuck in a rut. ‘Moving without going anywhere' is also a way of describing the pattern of game-playing. Games can be fun and, in the right context, healthy; but they can also be a form of denial or avoidance - we play them so as not to move forward.

Equally, we can get stuck in linear movement, in a continual tearing up of new territory. We can get addicted to novelty, always wondering what’s round the next corner. No sooner have we landed then we’re off again. To get stuck in this mode is to forget the importance of boundaries. We “go too far” and, like Icarus, run the risk of flying too close to the sun. Our towers become too high, ripe for a thunderbolt or two to bring them down to size.

The growth of the spiral, balancing as it does the two extremes, can be seen as an ideal. It covers new territory whilst staying within certain boundaries.